Sunday, November 20, 2005

Western Edition

There was an art opening in City Hall this Friday the 18th which is held in District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's office every month.

The artist this month was Ian Johnson, an interesting 26-year-old originally from Syracuse, New York.

"What does he look like?" I asked one of Mirkarimi's aides.

"He's a tall white guy with a shaved head," I was told.

Ian was out in the hallway beaming with pleasure at his art opening. To get to his website with more of his art, click here.

He works as the art director for a skateboard concern out of the Haight called Western Edition, a play on the name of the nearby ghetto neighborhood called the Western Addition. They also have an interesting website which you can get to by clicking here.

In fact, my favorite pieces at the opening were his great skateboards lined up across the wall.

At most of these monthly affairs, hardly anyone pays any attention to the art but instead engages in political gossip. h. brown, pictured above, had written a deeply unflattering column that morning calling Supervisor Mirkarimi a wuss who was "Gonzalez-lite" and who was being used by the Republican power brokers in town. To read the whole thing, click here.

He was also regaling his companion with a description of how ugly and malignant the new Burning Man sculpture in Civic Center is to his taste. As the old saying goes, there's no accounting for it...taste, that is.